so i passed my technician exam like three weeks ago and finally got my callsign last week. KD9 something something, you know how it is. anyway i bought a baofeng uv-5r just to get started (yeah yeah i know everyone says that) and i programmed it with chirp and found a local repeater listed on repeaterbook.

first time i keyed up i just froze. like completely blanked on what to say. i think i said my callsign wrong the first time and then some guy came back to me and i panicked and just said thanks 73 and let go of the ptt. the guy probably thought i was nuts. i did finally have a real qso on my third try, talked to a guy named Larry who was super patient and walked me through the whole thing. turned out he was an elmer for the local club. so that was cool i guess

anyone else have a terrible first transmission story or was it just me

oh man yes my first time i keyed up on a repeater and forgot to wait for the courtesy tone and just started talking over someone elses conversation. the whole net went quiet and then somebody very politely explained what i did wrong. i wanted to crawl into a hole. that was like 8 years ago and i still cringe thinking about it. dont worry about it, everyone has a rough start and the guys on the repeaters are usually pretty forgiving with new hams

haha welcome to the hobby, Larry types are everywhere and theyre great. i passed my test in febuary and my first qso was on FT8 actually so i kinda cheated, the software does most of the talking for you. been meaning to try voice but honestly still a little nervous about it